Coif Calamity Leads Jennifer Aniston to Chop Off Her Locks

The 44-year-old is known for her gorgeous, long locks, but a coif calamity of sorts led her to change up her signature hairstyle last week. She was photographed with her dramatic new look — a bob! — in Los Angeles on Monday. And the new hairstyle is short: it falls at her chin and it was styled messily with wavy strands falling in her face.

Aniston — who has her own hair care line, Living Proof, with her longtime hairstylist Chris McMillan — revealed that the reason behind her makeover was a hair misadventure.

"It wasn't for a role," she told Elle U.K. "My hair went through a phase — I did this thing called a Brazilian and my hair did not react really well to it."

Aniston was referring to the controversial Brazilian Blowout, a hair-straightening procedure done to smooth out locks and eliminate frizz. It's unclear why it didn't work for her, but she told the magazine she ended up snipping her locks "about 2-inches above my shoulders now."

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Aniston in September. (Getty Images)

What you can't tell from these photos — which remind us of when Aniston briefly bobbed back in 2001 — is that it's not the same length all around. In a second interview with PopSugar, she described the cut as, "Short! It's at my jawline and a little shorter in the back." She added that she was ready for the new look and was excited "to get it out of my face, so I could have a bit of an easier go at it."

Aniston's hair has had its own fame through the years. Her look during the first two years of "Friends" was dubbed the "The Rachel" and was widely copied by young women everywhere. McMillan created that iconic style, which Aniston apparently hated. "It was the ugliest haircut I've ever seen," she told Allure in 2011.

In September, Aniston, who is engaged to Justin Theroux, took it a step further during a radio interview on "The Kyle and Jackie O Show." She was asked if she would rather have "The Rachel" again for the rest of her life or shave her head once.

"Shave my hair once, definitely," she quickly answered.

Do you like Jen's new look? Prefer her long hair? Let us know in the comments below.